The present invention is directed to electric power supply arrangements and in particular to a high power and/or high voltage switching operational amplifier arrangement generating an AC output signal of low frequency.
In a variety of applications in electronic circuit design, a relatively high power or high voltage analog output signal has to be generated by amplifying a low power analog input signal. Furthermore, in some applications the generated high power signal may have to be switched on and off. Known power supply units for electronic circuit arrangements and larger systems have their drawbacks. Large electronic systems still have a reasonable power consumption, sometimes especially because of their high packing density; and heavy duty supply units require too much space and are too heavy in comparison with the associated electronic circuit arrangement. There are several difficulties in designing such a high power and/or high voltage supply unit which difficulties even accumulate in applications when a low frequency output signal of both high power and high voltage has to be generated.
Well known, presently used amplifying arrangements of the described purpose normally have a transformer for changing the voltage of analog input signal. The disadvantage of using a transformer in such a case is its inefficiency for low frequencies. Since the transformer in such a case has to be designed for high inductance it is of relatively large size and of heavy weight. The space requirements and the weight of such a circuit arrangement does not correspond to modern electronic circuit design which is usually of high packing density with reasonable weight.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to achieve a high power and/or voltage switching amplifier for low frequency application with less space and weight requirements, thus being better adapted for combination with presently available electronic circuits.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved high power and/or high voltage switching amplifier of transformerless design offering undistorted switching capabilities because of relatively small inductances and capacitances.